Tristan Blackmon's Defender of the Year win a reminder of how 2025 Whitecaps turn defence into offence - and vice versa
The accolades continue to pile up for the Vancouver Whitecaps and their players, as this week, centre back Tristan Blackmon was named MLS’s 2025 Defender of the Year.
A well-deserved individual honour for Blackmon, who was excellent at the back for the Whitecaps all season long, this award is also a sign of the work the team around him has done, too.
BACKLINE DOMINANCE 🤯🔥
— X - Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) October 28, 2025
Tristan Blackmon is the 2025 MLS Defender of THE YEAR 👏
The MLS All-Star becomes the first Vancouver Whitecaps FC player to earn the honour in club history. Leading from the backline, the 'Caps went unbeaten in his first 15 appearances of the season… pic.twitter.com/ahOcxeSmIW
Yet, that’s the beauty of an award like the Defender of the Year - unlike some of the other individual awards, which don’t uniquely rely on team success, this one strongly relies on the good play of one’s teammates.
Ultimately, it’s hard to be the Defender of the Year if your team leaks goals, no matter how good you are individually - the same can’t be said for other awards like the Golden Boot, Top Young Player or others.
Because of that, while Blackmon eventually stood out as the best individual defender in the league, that might not have happened without the success his team achieved defensively.
In a sense, though, it’s fitting that Blackmon earned this honour this week, however, as it comes on the heels of what was arguably the Whitecaps' most dominant defensive performance of the year - a 3-0 drubbing of FC Dallas in game #1 of their first round best-of-three MLS Cup playoffs series. 
Not only did they keep Dallas off the board, the 17th time they’ve held an opponent scoreless this year (in all competitions), but they did something most teams can’t say they’ve ever done - they held Dallas without a shot, period.
Yes, that is not a typo - Dallas failed to generate a single shot during this match, as their lone attempts were all on plays that eventually were called offside (hence the confusion with OPTA, who have incorrectly accorded a shot to Dallas on their model).
As far as defensive performances go, it’s hard to think of a more dominant display - and it came without key defenders like Blackmon (injured), Mathías Laborda (suspended), Ranko Veselinovic (injured), among others.
Of course, someone might see that stat and suggest that this hurts Blackmon’s Defender of the Year candidacy, given that his team was able to put in this display without him, and while that argument might carry some validity, the reality was that this Dallas display was just a prime example of what makes the Whitecaps defensive line so good - and it just so happens that Blackmon is the figurehead of that group, even if he didn’t play.
If anything, Blackmon’s participation might’ve made the performance even more dominant, should that have even been possible - which is why it’s exciting news that Blackmon’s return from a knee injury suffered in September appears to be imminent, given that he’s now been training with the group for a bit.
Lost in the shuffle when it comes to stories surrounding this Whitecaps team, but it’s almost been ignored how good this team has been defensively, as they conceded the second-fewest goals in MLS in the regular season, and conceded the second-lowest xG.
A big reason for that, however, is something that has powered Blackmon to the heights he has hit this year - the Whitecaps are extremely aggressive defensively under head coach Jesper Sørensen. As a result, they rack up final third recoveries, keep a low PPDA (passes per defensive action), and snuff out attacks before they even get to their half of the field.
For example, one of their best defenders has been their goalkeeper, Yohei Takaoka (who is fittingly up for MLS’s Goalkeeper of the Year award) but not in the way most would think - he’s had an average shot-stopping season, sitting with a PSxG+- of -1.0, but he’s been a dominant sweeper, leading goalkeepers in defensive actions outside the penalty area with 61 of them.
Yohei Takaoka loves a shutout. 🚫 pic.twitter.com/ZmLsrwbBOf
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 21, 2025
Thanks to that, his presence has allowed defenders like Blackmon to play extremely high up the pitch, knowing that Takaoka will be there to help sweep away any dangerous balls that might get behind them.
Yet, that’s the secret to the Whitecaps' defensive system - they’re experts at relational defending, which is the art of defending relative to one’s teammates. Instead of focusing on man-to-man defending or zonal defending, they’re always using each other as references, allowing them to keep opponents contained to certain areas of the pitch.
Against Dallas, they pinned them right back into their own half, and that allowed them to protect their own half - Dallas had just 72 touches in the Whitecaps’ half; the Whitecaps, by comparison, had 319.
That helps explain the success of Blackmon, of course, but even how someone like midfielder Ralph Priso has been able to step in seamlessly into a centre back position - Sørensen’s system rewards defenders who take risks, something a midfielder is usually comfortable doing.
“Defensive play is not just about being aggressive all the time. You have to be able to handle that aggression,” Sørensen explained this week. “For me, it’s all about space - we have to control the spaces around us, and if we can do that, then we can be more aggressive. For a defender to be aggressive, we need to know that there's cover behind at certain angles, and that's what we work on every day.”
“We would like to be a forward-defending team that can push up and take away space in front of us, but to allow that, we need to protect the backspace, and I think that's what we do, we do relational defending instead of man-to-man or situational. We’ve made mistakes throughout the year, but the players know that they have the security to be aggressive in certain moments when they have the cover around them and the cover is right.”
Of course, the trade-off can be that any Whitecaps mistakes can be amplified, leading to moments such as Laborda’s red card on Decision Day, which came from a gamble while defending in this high line, but for the most part, the Whitecaps' decision-making has been pretty seamless.
A look at the incident where Laborda was shown a red card for a foul on Sam Sarver.
— Garrett Melcer (@GarrettMelcer) October 19, 2025
TBH I'm surprised VAR/Chapman saw that as a clear & obvious error b/c of the trailing defender + Sarver being somewhat wide but FCD deserves a bit of luck after last week. pic.twitter.com/p81y5mZJ0E
“The offside line is helpful for the defensive team; they can take away the backspace by holding a line, so they can take away space in front of them,” Sørensen continued. “That’s another thing we’ve done well. The other day, we had a couple of plays where we pushed forward, and they were offside. That’s a balance, because sometimes we don't have the right pressure, so we have to drop our line, showing that it's not just about being aggressive to be aggressive, but it’s about being aggressive in the moments where we can allow it. So far, we have found a decent balance, but we're not perfect.”
While the Whitecaps' aggression off the ball has been the secret to this defensive success, however, don’t forget what they can do on the ball, too - that aspect of the game is another big reason why Blackmon distinguished himself from a lot of his peers.
Often, in the modern game, there’s a split between offence and defence, as teams are starting to employ two different styles of play on and off the ball. Before, a team would attack and defend in a similar shape - such as a 4-4-2 or a 4-3-3 - but now, it’s common that a team will build up one way, and defend in another.
A glimpse at what's made the Whitecaps defence so successful - take a look at their average line height, and high actions, in particular (American Soccer Analysis)
That’s the case for the Whitecaps, who usually build up with a back three, but defend with more of a back four. But what’s most interesting about the Whitecaps’ approach is that what they do in attack dictates their defence - and vice versa.
One of the big reasons they’ve been so dominant defensively? Their play on the ball, as they rarely make mistakes while building up, which makes it harder for opponents to generate the sort of dangerous counter-attacking chances that a lot of MLS teams live for.
On the flipside, one of the reasons why the Whitecaps have been so good offensively? The way they press, as they’re able to force teams into the sort of mistakes that they’re so good at avoiding themselves.
Because of that, it was interesting to hear the perspective of two Whitecaps players who play at opposite ends of the field - Blackmon, and striker Daniel Ríos - who this week helped explain this marriage between offence and defence that the Whitecaps have struck.
“Football has changed a little bit. I think the first defenders are now the offensive players, right?” Ríos offered. “We do a good press, which helps the defenders. During the games, there are times when their centre-backs have the ball, and we’ve pressed them so well that we’ve recovered the ball, and we’ve created chances and scored goals.”
“And the same from our defenders, they’re focused on knowing how to control and build the play up, which is the offensive part. They do well in the build-up to relieve the press and then make a pass through their first line of press, and then it's easier for us to create chances and score goals.”
“The defenders in our team are part of the initial attack,” Blackmon added. “When you have players who are so comfortable on the ball, and have the ability to break lines and carry the ball and beat players 1v1, I think it sets off a spark in the team, and creates transition moments for us, buying them a little bit more time to create chances. I think we've just done such a good job this year of having a collective idea, and everybody has bought into that. That only helps us, especially when you're going into tournaments and the playoffs, when you really have an identity, and you know that no matter which player is going to step on the field, they know exactly what they have to do and what everybody else has to do.”
“The defenders have done a really good job, but you also have to give credit to the attackers; they do such a good job with the press, and have learned throughout the year how to be even better there. We can see that in games, how many times we win the ball back so quickly from other teams, and we’ve turned that into capitalizing on chances and punishing teams.”
What that shows, though, is why it’s just as important to Blackmon’s Defender of the Year credentials that he completed 91.3% of his pass attempts in MLS play, including 62.3% of his long balls and 85.5% of his passes into the final third, as that possession play was crucial to his team’s strong defensive record.
As the saying goes, a good defence is a good offence, and that’s true for the Whitecaps - and the same is true in reverse, too.
Now, they’ll look to strike that balance once again as they get set for game #2 of this series vs. FC Dallas, as they try to book their spot in the Western Conference semi-finals, where a date with LAFC or Austin FC awaits - in particular, a matchup against the former would be quite intriguing for a Whitecaps side that has lost to LAFC in their last two trips to the playoffs.
Given that they’re better equipped than ever to limit the attacking threat that LAFC employs, while finally employing the firepower to hurt them at the other end, they’ll be excited for a test that could truly help them flex this multifaceted approach.
First, though, they’ll take care of business against a Dallas side that just saw what this multifaceted team looks like at its best - even if Sørensen is hesitant to say as much quite yet.
“It’s pretty strong words to say that it’s a prototype,” Sørensen said of his team’s game #1 dominance. “It’s not normal for us (to win like that), we can’t expect to play games like that very often - although it would be nice.”
